


Truth and Faith

by AerisLei



Category: Bleach
Genre: Character Study, Gen, No shipping, Sickfic, Sickness, canon character illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-28 05:31:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11411238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AerisLei/pseuds/AerisLei
Summary: Quick one shot depicting Jushiro's (mostly) internal battle with his illness as he attempts to move forward as the kind of captain that his division needs and that Yamamoto-sotaicho expects him to be.Jushiro is often his own worst critic.





	Truth and Faith

**Author's Note:**

> So! This is a mostly internal monologue sort of fic. It only kind of has a plot. It's a somewhat edited fic that was once posted on my Deviant Art (fire-lady-ursa) or something like that. I found it in a word document on my computer and decided to cross post it here. I'm not 100% happy with it but it was originally created back in 2012 and I wanted to leave its essence in tact so I added to it and modified a few awkward sentences but I left it as it was - a character study.

The slight coppery taste in his mouth warned him that tonight was going to be a rough one. It didn't seem to matter how much he rested or how careful he was. The flares still came, still crippled him. It was his gravest weakness. And yet Yamamoto-sensei had allowed him to take on a captain's position. Had _insisted_ that he take that position. The captain knew why, of course. He knew why Yamamoto-sotaicho-sama had wanted him to take on a captain's position. He knew what had led to this.

It said a lot for Yamamoto's feelings towards the younger Shinigami, but it was still frustrating at times. Ukitake Jushiro often found himself utterly frustrated at his own weakness – always with himself, never anyone else. Still, with Yamamoto-sensei's insistence he'd gone from his parents not really wanting him to enter the Academy in the first place, to being a well respected captain. That said a lot for the man he was, despite the Tuberculosis that made his life a living hell much of the time. Jushiro knew that, but it didn't change that he hated his own weakness.

A soft sigh escaped, one he'd never let anyone but those closest to him hear. Not even Kaien heard those sighs. The ones that he let slip when he was frustrated and tired of dealing with all of this. When he was close to laying down and just giving up. To telling Yamamoto-sotaicho that he couldn't do this captain thing any more.

He never let anyone else hear those sounds because by morning he would have convinced himself that it was best to keep pushing forward, that it was the only thing he could do. After all, to step down would be letting down many, and leaving quite a hole in the rankings until someone could be found to fill it. So he'd stay. Jushiro probably always would, no matter how tired he was.

But when it was late, and he was tired, it was hard to remember all of that. And sometimes, it was tempting. Times like right now, it was tempting. Perhaps that was normal, Shunsui certainly indicated it was. His closest friend supported him when he was like this, calmly listening if Jushiro wanted to talk, and then pointed out how much good he did in this position, even if he didn't feel like he had made a difference at all.

Jushiro shifted before the table carefully, and tried to focus on the paper work in front of him, taking a small sip of his tea, and ignoring the coppery taste in his mouth. He should have gone to bed, he should have gone to rest, but he wouldn't. Jushiro would do his job, he'd stay and finish the work, regardless, that was what was expected of him, he was a captain.

Despite that determination to finish the paper work, the longer Jushiro stared at it, the more it began to scatter in front of him. His mind had a hard time concentrating on the words themselves, and they seemed to shift, making it hard to read them. The copper taste worsened, and his chest began to ache.

That was a bad sign, and he knew it. A sign that he’d pushed himself too far today, that the stress was beginning to take a toll on his body. Again. He hated this. Jushiro took a slow breath, hoping to manage to settle out the worst of it before it flared into a full attack. Of course, the act of a deep breath only made his chest hurt worse, the muscles half seizing up as he did so, causing him to cough.

 _Dammit._ That was bad. The pain in his chest flared exponentially as he began coughing. Jushiro knelt there where he'd been half the night, striving to calm the coughing enough to find his medication. However, despite his best attempts, Jushiro crumbled on the spot, ending up half laying on his office floor, still coughing, trying to ignoring the rising copper taste and the stains of red on his pale skin.

“Ukitake-tai-” Kaien abruptly cut himself off as he caught sight of Ukitake struggling to breathe. “Ukitake-taicho!” A swishing sound could be heard as Kaien left, going to find one of the Yonbantai members who could care for his captain.

* * *

 

“You have to be more careful, Jushiro.” Unohana's gentle voice could be heard, just slightly chiding as she spoke to the other captain. “You can't push yourself that hard.”

“It was just paper work.” Jushiro mumbled, his voice sounding raw still.

"At nearly two in the morning, when you got up before dawn thanks to an emergency in your division.” Trust Unohana to know that.

“It still needed to be done.”  
“You could have left it for the morning.”

Which was true, he could have, probably should have, considering what had happened. Still, it had needed to be done, and he hadn't wanted to wait any longer than he already had to finish the reports. Even if there was some leniency thanks to his illness, Jushiro hated spilling into that grace period, it reminded him of the little exceptions that were made for him, without anyone being totally aware of them. They bothered him because if he couldn't keep up with the same standards that all the other captains did, then he didn't deserve to be a captain at all.

If he wasn’t able to keep up the same way as the other captains, then he didn't deserve the title, it was that simple. But trying sometimes led to this, and _this_ was even more frustrating than running into the grace period was.

“You were lucky Kaien decided to check on you again to chase you off to bed before he retired, else no one would have found you until morning.”

That hadn’t ever happened before, to be honest. But it was a risk, and he knew it. There was always a chance no one would think to look in on him at the right time. And he had been left for several hours in the past, when he was a child, before people were used to keeping an eye on him like that.

Now he was seldom more than a few moments into an attack before someone found him and called one of the Yonbantai to handle it.

“Rest now, Jushiro, and try to relax. Nothing is going to crumble in your absence.”

This time.

If only Jushiro could believe that things would stay like that.


End file.
